Apple's The Morning Show is good at looking like good TV -- and wannabe Aaron Sorkin

The New York Times

Apple TV+'s flagship offering looks like good TV, says James Poniewozik. "It sounds like good TV. It’s well-timed and brimming with serious purpose," he adds. "It’s certainly cast like good TV. It collects Jennifer Aniston and Steve Carell and Reese Witherspoon and a passel of fine character actors ... But after three episodes, this tech company’s first venture into TV is good only at appearing to be good. It’s like something assembled in a cleanroom out of good-show parts from incompatible suppliers. Under the gleaming surface, as sleek and anodyne as an Apple Store, it is a kludge." At its core, Poniewozik adds, "The Morning Show suffers from the flaw of many a media-workplace story: the belief that white-collar workaholism is inherently interesting. Its critique of morning talk — guess what, it’s too fluffy and driven by ratings — could have aired any time in the Bryant Gumbel era...You could call this program Sorkinian, partly because it shares a TV-news premise with Aaron Sorkin’s The Newsroom, partly because of the walk-and-talk scenes that tell you, 'These characters are smart and busy!' It’s Sorkin minus the sanctimony, but also minus the playful wit. Which leaves you with what? Exercise."

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• The Morning Show is a winner and a hell of a lot of fun, particularly thanks to Jennifer Aniston: "Jennifer Aniston may not be the best thing about this latest high-profile entry in the streaming TV competition, but she seizes command of the entire enterprise anyway, walking away with it through the sheer grit of her performance, one of the finest she’s ever given," says Alex McLevy. "Her Alex Levy is vulnerable, calculating, naive, arrogant, controlling, and messy all at once, a wonderfully freewheeling bundle of emotions and ruthless business savvy that jockey for dominance in her personality and in her constantly changing expressions. Aniston has never had such a meaty, outsized character before, and she dives headlong into the larger-than-life nature of the role. If she actually seems slightly less magnetic when performing onscreen in the show-within-the-show, a bit less than the marvel of daytime TV everyone around her keeps insisting she is, it’s in part because she’s so fully alive and charismatic in every moment of Alex’s offscreen life. The smiling alter-ego version just can’t compete. From the first notes of its lively, Saul Bass-like opening credits, The Morning Show is a hell of a lot of fun. It takes awhile to get going—the pilot is sprawling and overlong, struggling to launch the world of its narrative and introduce too many characters in too abrupt a manner—but once it does, it attains a kind of terminal velocity, as its protagonists and antagonists alike are swept up in a torrent of intrigue and office-politics gamesmanship."
• Reese Witherspoon and Jennifer Aniston can't salvage this politically muddled, underthought, and underwhelming streaming misfire: "Taking on a number of provocative topics, including and especially gender issues emanating from the toxic swamp of the breakfast-hour television industry, The Morning Show is perpetually on the human side, punting on the questions it itself puts forward in favor of airily treating them as too complicated," says Daniel D'Addario. "It’s early days for the show, whose first three episodes were provided to critics. But it’s hard to imagine that viewers excited by a series that promises to take on so much being satisfied by the exhaustion that bleeds out of the writers’ room onto the screen. The show gives up on its potential before it’s really underway, substituting career machinations for something more nourishing."
• The Morning Show is an intriguing, if imperfect, entry into the content wars: "I’ll keep watching," says Kristen Baldwin. "If we can all forgive the turgid early episodes of Succession — a prime-time soap about aggrieved rich white men — surely we can power through some growing pains for this ambitious drama about aggrieved women who are putting their anger to work." Baldwin describes The Morning Show as a "smart, showy, and sometimes strained drama about women and control, men and #MeToo, and the evaporating line between news and entertainment."
• The Morning Show is a movie expanded to TV show-length featuring movie stars: "Movie stars plugged into ready-made templates powered the entire film industry for decades, before those templates were called 'IP' and became the star of the show themselves," says Alison Herman. "Indeed, one gets the distinct feeling that, were The Morning Show made just 10 or 15 years ago, it would have been a feature, down to the exact same cast. Part of the reason figures like Aniston and Witherspoon have migrated to the small screen (or in this case, an even smaller screen—shout-out the iPhone 11) in recent years is that the parts they once specialized in have been all but squeezed out of the movies. Why not recreate the magic of charming people refracting each other’s charisma on TV? In practice, however, beats that are pleasingly repetitive at 90 minutes start to wear out their welcome over 10 episodes. Bradley’s plucky spark isn’t anywhere near as winning as the script seems to think it is."
• The Morning Show is a slick, sophisticated venture stuffed with powerhouse performances -- Aniston's foremost among them: "As the first foray by new streaming service Apple TV+, it is all the more impressive that there isn’t a weak link in The Morning Show," says Lucy Mangan. "Aniston is flawless – wholly convincing as a woman both broken by and rightfully raging at Mitch’s betrayal, a force to be reckoned with and a person who has had it up to here with a lifetime of negotiating other people’s whims, needs and prejudices. Everyone else – especially Billy Crudup as the network suit playing seven-dimensional chess with everyone – matches her point for point. The script has depth and endless torque and the whole thing is an exhilarating rush that makes room for nuance, thought and – though it’s definitely a drama – humour. Like ageing anchors and not-good guys, established streaming services will no doubt be looking over their shoulders now, and worrying a little more every day."
• The Morning Show is more of a "fender bender" than a "car wreck" of a show: It is, says Hank Stuever, "a conspicuous fender bender, in which ambition has been rear-ended by self-importance, causing it to bump into a dump truck full of cliches. As a show, it's spread on as thick as it looked to be in all those teaser trailers, a promisingly salacious tale of conflict that gets bogged down by its need to also seem noble. It's reminiscent of Aaron Sorkin's leadenly righteous HBO series The Newsroom, another finger-wagger about the high-stakes, ethically murky world of broadcast news. Keep in mind, there are still viewers out there who thought The Newsroom was fantastic stuff; if you're among them, then The Morning Show will probably soon have you eating out of its hand."
• The Morning Show is fairly entrancing as a mix of melodrama and well-written interactions that feel genuinely human: "Hovering over the series," says Robert Lloyd, "is the walking-and-talking ghost of Aaron Sorkin — yes, yes, he’s still alive, whatever — who has created three shows about television (live television, for that matter): Sports Night, Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip and The Newsroom. The Morning Show lacks the theatrical brio of those series, and also the sense that television might be a fun place to work, between the tantrums, breakdowns and passive-aggressiveness. People in Sorkin shows love their jobs; people in The Morning Show mostly love having their jobs. It’s more like a Manhattan Game of Thrones, really, in which various forms of subtle, even polite skulduggery, backstabbing and under-bus-throwing are enacted and discussed, with a lot of attention paid to power and gender dynamics in the workplace."
• The Morning Show feels dated because of its racial optics: "None of this would happen in TV’s era of diversity optics," says Robert Rorke. "The high-stakes, big-money world of TV news relies on big-name agents, extensive vetting and a corporate support for diversity. Look at the top network morning shows and you will see the faces of Craig Melvin, Hoda Kotb, Gayle King and Robin Roberts. In a damning piece of Hollywood myopia, we have two elite white actresses sharing anchor duties. Several minority characters are passed over for the position, and this narrative blunder exacerbates the overall dated look and feel of The Morning Show."
• This is high-end, eminently watchable trash: "The Morning Show is an hour long, but feels like half that as the series rockets quickly through the process of rebooting their show in the wake of Mitch’s scandal," says Alex Zalben. "It’s also built for the binge, with each episode ending on a cliffhanger, then quickly picking up in the same moment at the beginning of the next episode. A lot of credit can go to Mimi Leder’s propulsive direction, which keeps everything moving and is glisteningly filmed. Though Leder has worked on multiple movie and TV projects over the years, The Morning Show feels paced more like her action work on Deep Impact than a TV drama about morning news."
• Negative early reviews were for the first three episodes that were strangely inert, but the remaining episodes are fascinating: "As you watch The Morning Show, more context, again, helps. The first three episodes made available to critics are remarkably flat for such a lavish venture," says Sophie Gilbert. "...But then, on Thursday, Apple released more episodes to critics, and I watched more, and something changed...When The Morning Show finally gets its setup established, and starts to grapple with the consequences and the meaning of what Mitch has actually done, the show finds some momentum. It’s at its most fascinating, and meaningful, when it’s picking at the cultural scar tissue left by so many allegations: the men in puddles of self-pitying reprisal, the dishonest proclamations that persist even now about movements going too far and all men being tarred with the same sticky brush, regardless of the scale of their reported offenses. With Carell’s Mitch, The Morning Show gets to think about the self-aggrandizement and denial that make some abusers incapable of honestly evaluating themselves. But it also gives space to the women he harassed to explain how his behavior affected them."
• The Morning Show resembles a more muted Shonda Rhimes serial or a less smug Aaron Sorkin joint: "It’s pithy and easy to watch but rarely as thought-provoking as you’d hope, given the topic," says Judy Berman. "Mitch’s murky, sub-Lauer sins and Carell’s operatic tears hint at moral ambiguity without confronting it, and Ehrin adds little (in the three episodes sent to critics) to the #MeToo discourse. The Morning Show could make a great core program for Apple TV+, if only its scripts had the courage of its lead characters."
• A waste of money and star power: "It invests a lot of money and star power into what feels like a mediocre Aaron Sorkin wannabe from 2007," says Gavia Baker-Whitelaw. "As a female-led drama that begins with a #MeToo scandal, The Morning News is meant to be a relevant, contemporary show about news media and sexual harassment. It’s toothless in both regards, paling in comparison to what we saw on The Good Wife over a decade ago; another feminist workplace drama. I can easily see this show vanishing from the cultural consciousness by 2020."
• The Morning Show distracts with frequent use of the iPhone and the word "f*ck": "Let’s pause to talk about where you could make a drinking game out of The Morning Show," says Amy Amatangelo. "First, there are a lot of shots and usage of iPhones. In the opening sequence, the iPhone is practically another character. Yes people use their phones all the time. And yes many, many people have an iPhone. But still, the constant pan of the camera towards the iPhone was a bit much. It’s a heavy-handed product placement. More concerning is the constant use of the word 'f*ck' or some variation thereof. I don’t mean this in a prudish way but its use here, practically every other word, is distracting. Also its constant use means all the characters talk pretty much the same way which is rather boring. If you took a drink every time a character said 'f*ck,' you would be wasted 15 minutes into the premiere. There’s a lesson most streaming networks have yet to learn—just because you can use profanity doesn’t mean you have to."
• The Morning Show is a very good show that is almost great: "In some ways, The Morning Show is unexpectedly a series about grief," says Kevin Fallon. "Carell’s Mitch grieves the loss of his career and the overzealousness of #MeToo. Aniston’s Alex is grieving the loss of her sense of security, and, with it, control. Witherspoon is mourning the loss of her own agency. And everyone, in not-so-subtle ways, seems to be grieving something bigger: What is happening to journalism? America? To all of us? A morning program is the catalyst for all of this big thinking because it is supposed to be an innocuous safe space, the comfort food. It’s upsetting when your comfort food gets soured, and even worse when it’s the first meal of the day. How do you come back from that? The Morning Show isn’t offering comfortable takes on these issues."
• Apple's debut drama is rudderless and dull: "Watching The Morning Show is a bit like watching The Big Short, except nothing is said straight-to-camera and nearly everything is boring," says Ben Travers. "Adam McKay’s Oscar-winning 2015 film was so worried about its complicated, term-heavy plot that it gussied up every other aspect of the production; there’s a cheeky voiceover, a star-studded ensemble, and even diegetic celebrity explainers, like Margot Robbie breaking down subprime mortgages from a bathtub. All this was in service of a dire message: unchecked bad behavior will repeat itself, even on a global scale. Apple’s first drama — from an amalgamation of writers and producers including creator Jay Carson, showrunner Kerry Ehrin, and writer/executive producer Michael Ellenberg — has the opposite problem: It trusts its story without knowing what it’s trying to say. All the pretty people in the world can’t keep you hooked when the purpose is this muddled, and hoo boy, is it hard to figure out what The Morning Show wants to accomplish, or even who we’re meant to care about."
• Despite a cast that is too stacked, The Morning Show feels out of touch with 2019: The Apple drama, says Dave Nemetz, "seems to be set in a fairy-tale world of journalistic integrity, with starry-eyed reporters battling with coldhearted network executives, like it’s encased in amber from two decades ago. It makes half-hearted attempts to incorporate modern broadcast trends, but just feels hopelessly out of step with the way people consume news now. (Side note: The show’s fictional TV network is named UBA, which is a terrible network name. Just awful.) The overall tone is deeply confused: First, it’s light and bouncy, almost comedic, and then turns gravely serious, like a daytime TV host making a particularly clumsy segue."
• The Morning Show's ideological wobbliness persists through its first three episodes: "The Morning Show is working with compelling material, but every move arrives with a safety net," says Karen Han, adding: "The Morning Show just can't choose a side.... In just the first three episodes, the workplace drama tackles the #MeToo movement, cancel culture, and how everyone who isn’t a cis white man has to struggle to be heard in the workplace. But The Morning Show renders nearly every sharp observation irrelevant in the same breath."
• Ignore the backlash and devour Aniston's performance: "Ignore what you’ve heard," says Adam Miller. "Sure, The Morning Show is ridiculous but it’s the bingeable TV you should gobble up at the first available opportunity...Despite the lukewarm reviews, millions will come for Jennifer and Reese regardless, but they’ll stay for cut-throat drama which makes for a wildly entertaining new series, at least from evidence seen in the first three episodes."
• The Morning Show is a confounding series full of actors you like, none of whom seem particularly thrilled to be there
• The Morning Show favors soap opera over self-importance, making this newsroom a fun place to visit, especially if you like your headlines over the top
• The Morning Show is content playing the same old game under the same old rules -- it's a throwback in all the wrong ways
• Reese Witherspoon explains the surprise Episode 2 cameo
• How a classic Mary Tyler Moore Show episode mirrors a Morning Show episode
• The Morning Show is loosely based on Brian Stelter's 2013 book Top of the Morning: Inside the Cutthroat World of Morning TV: But how much of the book is in the series?
• Director Mimi Leder considers The Morning Show a like love story between Aniston and Witherspoon's characters: "Their story is so interesting because it’s structured almost like a love story: two characters colliding at very different points in their lives," says Leder. "One is on a professional plateau, this huge event has happened, and the other is hoping to make her mark. It was really fun creating the tone between Alex and Bradley because they both have two very different versions of authenticity, and two very different approaches to their jobs of bringing America the news.”
• Leder insists The Morning Show's door button isn't based on Matt Lauer's reported door button
• Showrunner Kerry Ehrin recalled turning down The Morning Show -- despite developing a new story for the pilot, she didn't receive "Created by" credit: Instead, the WGA awarded "Created by" to original showrunner and former Hillary Clinton press secretary Jay Carson, who was fired from the series. Ehrin, instead, earned a "Developed by" credit. “I turned it down twice because I knew what I was getting into,” Ehrin tells Vulture. “It was launching Apple’s streaming service and two huge stars and a new studio. There was a lot riding on it. So, of course, you’re gonna think really long and hard about stepping into something like that.”
• Ehrin can relate to working in morning television: “I relate to it a lot because I’ve been in entertainment for 30 years and I don’t think it’s hugely different: It’s high-stress, it’s high stakes, you don’t have time to stop and think about whether or not you’re happy, you just have to keep going all of the time,” she says. “I’ve met a lot of men, and I’ve seen a lot of different situations and been in a lot of different situations, so I had a lot to write about. I didn’t need Matt Lauer."